06/07/2011

ATLAS/Textweek suggested readings for Pentecost A - July 12, 2011

Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts.

“In a society that opposes us more subtly by means of constantly beckoning us into distractions that dissipate the flow of our river away from our focal concerns of loving God and our neighbor, can we let the Holy Spirit channel our water so that it remains alive and vital?”

Abstract: “As the title suggests, this essay interprets Babel and Pentecost in relation to the U.S. context, especially as seen through the struggle and dreams of Asian North Americans for a colorful and just society. Through a postcolonial critique of the myth of the tower of Babel, which is a countermyth to the Enuma Elish (the dominant Mesopotamian myth), the master narrative and other hegemonic practices of white capitalist United States are exposed and decentered in an attempt to give space for Asian North American narrative. If the myth of the tower of Babel is about hegemony and its various expressions, the Pentecost event points to a different way of thinking, dwelling, and acting. Pentecost presents to us a vision of what it means to live together in a pluralistic United States and how to construe power and organize society. This essay ends with a challenge to "conspire" with the Spirit, the primary agent in the Pentecost event, in order to forge a colorful and just tomorrow.”

“In our plurality, no matter how diverse and completely different we are from one another, the breath of our wind-rush God can empower us to 'breathe together' so that we can speak in our own 'tongue(s)' and understand each other. For, to speak the tongue or language that another uses demands of us deep listening in love.”

“…a Pentecost church manages to hold enough trust in God's wild Spirit to believe that God is at work in the unfamiliar, in the chaos, outside the boundaries we impose, bringing new life and new hope to a world that sorely needs it. A Pentecost church believes God knows how to be God and rejoices that we get to be God's partner in spreading the word of grace and embrace and reconciliation that we know in Jesus Christ into all the world.”

“Acts says we are right to see the multicultural composition of our congregations as a kind of test of the fidelity of our preaching. I think Acts would also tell us that, whenever by the grace of God our preaching overcomes some cultural boundary, we are right to rejoice that God continues to work wonders through the word. Whenever we hear "multicultural" we are supposed to think "church," that peculiar cross-cultural people gathered by nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit.”

Summary: “Many features of the Fourth Gospel have hitherto found no source and commentators are confined to imagination. Meanwhile Buddhists' use of Greek, Roman and Jewish materials is established. It turns out, from a close examination of twelve instances, that Buddhist traditions, found in Hïnayâna and Mahäyäna sources, contemporary in essence with St John, offered the latter an opportunity to make his gospel attractive to contemporary targets of Buddhist missions, groups for whom Moses was not a commanding figure. Buddhists would recognise Jesus, already known from "synoptic" or para-synoptic materials, as a Bodhisattva, now a Buddha, who like Gautama promised a Paraclete, strongly resembling Maitreya in character and function.”

“The purport of all this, if the Ezekiel passage is kept in mind, becomes plain. At the great climax of the Jewish festival year, the Son of God perceives the spiritual thirst of those whose hopes were wrapped up in a system of earthly ordinances and rituals. Standing up before them as the true Source of living water, He cries out for all to hear the gracious invitation to partake of the water of life from Him. But this time He goes further than ever before in describing the consequences of accepting that gift. It was true that the believer in Him could never thirst again (6:35), that the believer would have always an exhaustless well of life within him (4:14). But more was true as well. When, in the last day that believer was raised to life according to Jesus' own solemn promise (6:39-40), he would then become — like the temple Ezekiel had foreseen in Scripture — an abundant source of living water in a world that God was remaking and would fill with His own supernatural blessing.”

“Since we are in a troubled time in our nation's history, I invite you to spend some time on your knees in prayer: pray for our leaders to have wisdom born of God; pray for our nation; pray for our people. Attend our Ash Wednesday service this Wednesday, which is focused on offering our sins to God, being self-reflective and going through a spiritual purification as we begin the season of Lent. If you know you have done wrong and have been passive about the wrongs in our world, if you know there are areas of your life where you tolerate the intolerable and accept the unacceptable, then get right with God. Do whatever it takes to make amends for your wrongs. We may yet avert God's anger if we become faithful as he is faithful.”

“From this passage, as well as the Pentecost story, it is clear that God works in ways that we sometimes do not understand—and surely cannot control. God often works outside human expectations, plans, and structures. The power to be a faithful Christian, a faithful leader, and a faithful church comes from outside of us, and that power will always have elements of mystery. Accepting this power into our lives involves risk. As God stretches us, challenges us, corrects us, and changes us and our way of life, we may want to say with Joshua, "Forbid this!" Does the church have the courage to say with Moses, "Would that this power flowed even more freely among God's people today?" The challenge for the church in its preaching and in all aspects of its life is to admit its need for, and to open itself anew to, this life-changing, life-giving power.”

“The 'love chapter' in I Corinthians is usually thought to be a digression by Paul from his main argument about spiritual gifts. However, applying the tool of classical rhetoric to the passage reveals a previously unnoticed structure behind our chapter divisions. From the principles of good speech preparation (explained by Cicero in De Partitione Oratoria) Paul has arranged his discussion of spiritual gifts into the five standard parts: introduction, statement of facts with thesis statement, presentation of positive arguments, refutation of opponents ' views and conclusion. In this way one can identify the key summary statements, the skilful argumentation of Paul, the apparent views of his opponents, and the contextual function of chapter thirteen. This paper makes a thorough analysis of these chapters according to the theory in Cicero's handbook, summarised in a chart at the end.”